First up is a lovely story about the relationship between a cat and a dog. From HuffPo:

[…] The remarkable tale of friendship focuses on Pudditat, a stray feline with a fierce reputation as a bully who grew close to Tervel, a blind farm dog afraid to leave the safety of his bed. Pudditat becomes a seeing-eye-dog of sorts, leading Tervel around with her tail in a delightful show of animals helping each other out. […] (Click here to read the rest.)

And here is a lovely video of these two best buddies, Pudditat and Tervel:

How sweet is that? What a wonderful, and remarkable, partnership these two have formed. How fortunate that they found one another…

The next story is bittersweet indeed. It is about a 9 year old boy who is losing his sight, and the kindness of strangers. From the News Miner (via HuffPo):

[…] He was born so prematurely doctors didn’t think he would live. It eventually became clear he would make it, but his eyes weren’t developing properly so doctors recommended surgery. The procedure saved his vision, but only temporarily. The surgery left scar tissue, and as Ben grows, so does the scarring, making his vision worse with each growth spurt.

Armed with that knowledge, Ben’s family has undertaken a mission: help him see the most remarkable visual displays the world has to offer. From the elegant to the mundane, from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to the Apple store in Dallas, the Pierce family has made it their goal to show Ben the things he most desires to see before it’s too late.

It was the draw of one of those seven wonders of the natural world — the northern lights — that brought Ben’s family to Fairbanks. They arrived at the airport to fanfare Thursday before heading off to stay at Chena Hot Springs Resort. […]

[…] When Ben began making his wish list, his two older siblings, Christopher, 12, and Moira, 11, decided they wanted to help fulfill their brother’s dreams, so they asked their mom if they could donate their allowances toward Ben’s list.

“We said ‘Of course you can, but your allowance is not going to go very far. It’s not like you have a big allowance,’” Heidi told them.

Last year Christopher and Moira pitched in and helped buy Ben a pass to the zoo.

[…]

Ben’s family has been able to make many of his wishes come true, but not all. They weren’t able to visit the Pyramids in Egypt, and they didn’t think they would ever be able to travel to see the northern lights — until Chris Cice showed up on their doorstep, that is.

Cice is a pilot with Alaska Airlines. He is based in the Seattle area, but one day his daughter came home from school talking about the boy in Texas who was trying to see the world before he goes blind. He read a news story and watched a video, prompting him to approach his company.

“I said let’s take a look at this list and see what we can do,” Cice said. Alaska Air couldn’t fly them to Iceland, “but we can do Fairbanks.” […] (Click here to read the rest of this moving story.)

And that is how this young boy, who has a bucket list of things he wants to see before he no longer can, was able to see the Northern Lights. That is something I very much hope to do myself some day. It was the kindness of strangers who helped make this “once in a lifetime” possibility a reality for Ben Pierce and his family. (There are donation sites set up to assist Ben in being able to see more of the places on his list. You can find them here.)

Here is more about Ben and his family’s trip to Alaska:

That the Pierces were able to make this trip, see the Northern Lights, and do other quintessentially Alaskan adventures, was a blessing on so many levels: fro Ben, his family, those who were part of the whole experience, and those who made it happen (to name some). What a gift that Ben was able to see the “watercolors going across the sky.”

And last but not least, this funny video a friend posted at Facebook of more interspecies cooperation (Marge, consider this an homage to your girl):

Yep, that is some kind of cooperation, isn’t it?

There are many more stories out there to be shared, and I welcome you to do so here. It can be whatever you want, though – this is the Weekend Open Thread.

This paragraph is from a very good, IMO, post by Bruce Thornton @ Front Page Magazine. I find it sadly true.

Then there are the nearly 66 million American people who reelected as president an inexperienced narcissist, serial liar, racial divider, and manifest failure. Whether they did so out of juvenile idealism, hope for racial reconciliation, or the lure of more government handouts doesn’t really matter. This lack of judgment and basic information, or sacrifice of principle to self-interest, bespeaks an electorate significant numbers of whom are unlikely to support any politician or party that seriously attempts to halt runaway entitlement spending, debt, and deficits, or to rebuild our military deterrence and reassert our will globally.

The comments at The Hill were generally in the, “what a ridiculous thing to say” category. Stopping flights coming HERE is not the same as us not going THERE. Good grief – this is what passes for intelligent thought in this Administration…

As usual the Judge was right on. I wonder if the administration, in it’s usual playing of politics realizes that if this gets out of hand that they will pay a terrible price. They will damage their “brand” for a very long time. The Republicans will have a stick to beat them with again and again and again.

We know that they don’t care if Americans die because of their incompetence. A few dead people are just a bump in the political road – bad “optics” as it were.

Even the stupids that support them may get a tad annoyed if they or their family get ebola. And that may be just a little worse than worrying about Liberia’s economy or the bottom line for the airlines.

Every time I think the idiocracy in government can get no worse they surprise me, and not in a good way.